


AirWaterFire

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-31
Updated: 2006-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-29 09:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: River learned the ventilation shafts early.





	AirWaterFire

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Post-Serenity (movie, not pilot). If this means you can't read it, you are a poor excuse for a whedongeek! Go rent it! NOW!  
>  This one goes with Ripples, and that one's more of a tease, so you might want to read it first.

  
Author's notes: Post-Serenity (movie, not pilot). If this means you can't read it, you are a poor excuse for a whedongeek! Go rent it! NOW!  
This one goes with Ripples, and that one's more of a tease, so you might want to read it first.  


* * *

AirWaterFire

## AirWaterFire

River learned the ventilation shafts early. 

Serenity is compact, true -- crew and passenger dorms, infirmary, bridge, lounge and kitchen neatly jammed up together behind the cargo bay. Everywhere, space must be utilized completely. No room for bookshelves, so a series of webbed pockets stretch against a wall. Sinks and toilets are one unit. The mule is hoisted and chained to the ceiling of the cargo bay, keeping floor space free for goods. 

And yet, despite all this efficiency, ventilation tubes snake through the ship -- wide enough to fit two Rivers, side by side. 

She knows it's dangerous to slide through them; knows that's how fire traveled through the ship so quickly that time Serenity got wounded and Mal almost died. Jayne, of all people, knew that too: as he shut the doors, he also closed the emergency gates throughout the ventilation system. This, more than anything, was what saved their lives, what allowed them, finally, to shunt the whole burning mass easily into space. 

Kaylee knows everything about Serenity, of course: the airshafts are no exception. Once a week, she does a circuit, opening the access hatches near each safety gate to double-check and oil the hydraulic controls. But that's it. She would never want to plunge herself into the ship's veins, become part of it. Kaylee loves Serenity, but it isn't the kind of love where edges blur. 

It isn't for River either, of course -- she's not the ship, no matter what she told Early. But she finds the web of wind extremely useful. Mostly, she finds it useful for watching. 

She gave up this habit after Miranda. Everyone was grieving, right there in the open -- no secrets, no hiding. They didn't cry in the same room -- Zoe especially staying stone-faced -- but masks were off and this made it markedly easier for River to walk through them. There were less flashes of subtext, less moments of disconnect where she felt the things not said screamed redly into her brain. 

And so River stayed to the common paths. That was the point of her secret passageway, anyway, to find everyone's true faces. No need if they were wearing them already. 

In those months before, though -- innocent months when no one was worried about signals or had heard the word Miranda (except for Kaylee, but she'd forgotten), when everyone was caught up in small, petty problems and personal woes, River had waited 'till Simon fell asleep, then walked barefoot, silent, out of the passenger dorms and up into the ventilation shafts. Her access point was a panel in one of the secret alcoves they used for smuggling. The cover didn't fit properly. It didn't belong, in fact. Before the fire, there hadn't been a panel there at all -- just a gaping hole -- but Kaylee and Jayne had held a brief conference a day after the fire disaster had gone down (Mal still in the infirmary, sedated) and Jayne helped her cut down some scrap metal to fit. Even Kaylee's clever hands, though, couldn't make it perfect; the metal was too thick to hold up with screws ("Just as well," she sighed "More likely to keep the bad out."), and so in the end they'd added hinges and a latch. 

At night, for River, this was the door to understanding. She was a reader, true, but even readers needed pages held out to them: thoughts in the foremost of the mind. (Even for Miranda, but that's another story.) 

She'd taken to doing a circuit: Jayne first, then Kaylee, then Wash and Zoe, last Mal. When Book had been with them she'd gone a few times to watch him, but discovered, painfully, that she already knew his secret face. The only thing that saved him, that kept her from springing out of the vent and twisting his neck, was that his secret face wasn't the true one. Book himself wasn't sure of this, not during his waking hours, though he wanted it desperately to be so. River, however, was sure. River knew. Book was Shepherd, not smooth-faced death. _Wish I had told him_ , River thought painfully in the present moment. _Wish I hadn't kept it in_. 

The ventilation shafts couldn't reach Inara, but River didn't care. Companion training, River knew, included conditioning to keep the countenance guarded during sleep and to dream only lucid dreams. Staggering control. No way behind that mask. And Wash didn't matter either. He was the opposite of Inara, kept things out in the open. The only thing he tried to hide was fearfulness, wanting to be strong for Zoe, and this was endearing. And obvious. 

Simon -- River never considered it. No secrets to find there. 

So that left the other four. And they were such a tangle of truths, half-truths, lies, complexities, sadness, lust and compassion that River felt she'd never pull the threads free, never know it all. 

The ventilation shaft opened to Jayne's bunk right over his bed, grate in the wall behind the shelf on which he kept Vera. It swung out, and so River brought wire, tied the gun to the grate before lifting it up. Tricky, in the dark, but River's hands were clever, and she had practiced when Jayne wasn't on board. The first time had been disastrous - wire slipped under the trigger and a deafening explosion hit the opposite wall as River, over-confident, pulled the gun back to the grate. 

Luckily, everyone was out, except Simon, and River had left him with sound plugs in his ears, listening to La Boheme ( _trying to understand the crew_ \- River knew immediately, rolled her eyes - and he flushed, got angry, wanted her out of their quarters). So no one knew - not even Jayne - who _such a boy_ River thought - didn't even notice the faint scorch marks on the wall. 

Jayne slept on his stomach, body draped enormous across the entire bed. Slept deep - dreams caught him whole and pulled him under and River would lie on her own belly, head out of the grate, and watch him tremble with them. 

Jayne had a whole lot of ugly dreams. _Wasn't supposed to be here_ , River thought, _didn't want to be a merc._ He took the label like it belonged to him, wore the clothes, worked his muscles to fit the picture, but still wasn't. _Coyotes,_ River thought, watching the path his subconscious was taking through the day _Bad guys are coyotes._ Jayne wanted his momma's farm, wanted the horses and cows and sheep and dogs and all that hard work, all that black and whiteness, falling into bed at the end of the day exhausted. Wanted to let his hands gentle over the head of a skittish colt, tussle with his dogs, throw crops (his own crops) through the air onto a flat-top, wanted female thighs spread open for him at the end of the day, wanted things simple as he was. _Coyotes._ And wanted to get them all off _Serenity_ , all the women -- this part had surprised River -- wanted them safe. Jolt ran through him every time he saw Zoe stride out with Mal, but he hid it, knew she'd wallop him if he said anything. And Kaylee - sometimes Jayne's dreams bled concern for his _mei mei_. Again and again his night-thoughts wound back to that awful moment ( _messy beginnings_ thought River, _no care taken_ ) when Lawman shot her in the stomach, and the dreams let Jayne punch him to pieces just before, let him save her. Loved her, loved her like the small girl before Matti (unthinking love of a brother who hardly noticed his sister until she fell), wanted her happy and laughing and off this gorram ship. 

Once in a while River would linger longest over Jayne's bunk, eyes closed, dreaming with him of green and farm animals and more food than anyone should ever try to eat. No romance, just life as easy or bloody as normal was supposed to be. 

Normal life. 

This thought always jolted her away -- _No such thing. Not ever. Not now._ \-- and River would close the grate quietly, remove wires and slide away. 

Away to Kaylee. Kaylee was worse about it, in a way. Good as grass, plainspoken and in love with pleasure, but every once and a while in love with romance too, castles and crowns and curtsies. Every once in a while River had skipped Kaylee's bunk -- too sick with Jayne's longing for normal to open to Kaylee's longing for glamour. _Both lies_ she would think, furiously, head aching and body feeling like it could just about smash the world open. 

But mostly she stopped. The vent to Kaylee's room was under her bunk, and River would lie there, body matching Kaylee's above it. The thing that was surprising about Kaylee was how efficient her subconscious was. Sometimes occupied with fairytales, yes, but mostly with revolving engine parts, floating in a white room. Things stuck with her from the day, half-noticed grinding and stickiness, and night-thoughts solved the problems, stubbornly twisting things right. Compression coils, recycler hydraulics, injector pumps -- all kinds of working and passive parts floated through that blank space, stayed 'till Kaylee'd figured it out. Sometimes it took days. River would watch with her, started trying to find the fault first, but here Kaylee bested her, always. _Smart_ , thought River, _sometimes smarter than me._ It had surprised her. 

Once Simon had found his way into Kaylee's dream workshop, revolving like the engine block. It had made River laugh, but Kaylee's mind's eye regarded him miserably. Couldn't find the fault. 

Zoe screamed at night. 

In her dreams, that is, and not always, of course. Sometimes there were memories (hard memories: orphaned at 4, foster homes 'till 15, joined the military at 17), sometimes mute astonishment with the love she had, sometimes easy hope for things that may be -- but the screams always came back. 

River didn't mind. This was easier to take, somehow, than the fantasies Jayne and Kaylee harbored. Zoe didn't indulge in such (save for that one dream of a small boy, eyes blue as the sky, blue as his father's), didn't shy away from here and now and real. It was before that hurt her, and Zoe screamed it out, again and again and again, lost at the heart of a dark valley, knee-deep in blood. 

And was always quieted the same way: Mal's hands on her shoulders, Mal pulling her back against him, Mal kissing her. 

It had happened. River knew. Zoe still wasn't sure, not in her waking hours, but at night her mind revisited the sensations precisely: Mal's roughened fingers coming up to palm her jaw, cup the curve of her neck and pull her in, capturing her lower lip fiercely between his two chapped ones, doing things with his teeth and lips that made her shut up, made her mind snap back to reality and sanity, long enough to push him away, trembling, flooded with heat that she was ( _gorram it_ ) never ( _ta ma de_ ) going to let him know about. 

River crawled to Mal's bunk next. 

Mal sleeps on his belly, too, covers usually kicked too the floor. Wears cotton pants with a drawstring at night, boots and gun near him in case of trouble. He doesn't sleep deep, like Jayne; he skims the surface like a water spider, faint dreams flooding a watercolor wash behind his closed eyelids. 

_No_ , River corrected, _Not always faint._

Mal wasn't guilty. It was what River expected -- a citation of the dead, long lists held painful, eternal, gripped in dreams by bloodless knuckles. But there weren't any. 

There was loss, though, and oh, it was surprising. 

Mal in a white collar and black shirt -- trying it on, just for fun, but suddenly gripped as he looked in the mirror. Mal saying impassioned things to a congregation of uninterested cattle. Mal filling out forms for seminary school, aiming to be a shepherd and a Shepherd. Mal on fire with love for God and the good world around him, for his Momma and the ranch and the rightness of life. 

And Mal bereft, suddenly, hand still clutching the cross around his neck as green fire screamed out of the sky and God was dead. 

The first time he'd dreamed this, River was still drunk on the newness of her plot. She was doing a night circuit for the first time. She'd even climbed out, boldly, to dangle her legs down into the ventilation shaft (the grate in Mal's room was in the centre of the floor), and was humming with excitement even as she looked at Mal and dove in. It had been a good day. They'd had an easy job: no one had gotten killed or even shot at, and money paid near the amount they'd been promised. Jayne wasn't on board -- had gone out to the local whorehouse and fallen asleep there; Kaylee and Simon had drunk sake and flirted and left for their own beds and happy, vague dreams; Wash & Zoe had made love before sleeping and both of them had fallen deep asleep, only sliding into dreams of each other. And so River had reached Mal's bunk humming with the ease of all of it, loving her crewmates and thinking she already knew them, clearly, knew everything, top 3 percent. 

And then she'd reached out to Mal's mind and had been shocked into stillness by the pain. 

It wasn't all Mal dreamed. Sometimes he dreamed of home, sometimes he dreamed of _Serenity_ , sometimes of Inara taunting him. Sometimes plastic dinosaurs had invaded the ship and were multiplying rapidly. And once, just once, he'd dreamed of kissing Zoe, and it had been exactly as Zoe dreamed it, except Mal was wild with worry, needed her to be her strong self and hold him up. He'd kissed her to shock her out of it, but then he was lost in it, Smell-smell and Softness-softness, and when she'd stepped back he'd felt like he'd lost something. (And in his dream she stepped back from the kiss and disappeared.) 

Even in his dreams he steadied himself, though, pushed down the flare of heat. 

River was curious about this part, which is why Mal was the last stop on the circuit, why she stayed there nearly until he woke. Wasn't what he thought about Zoe that she cared about -- it was the uncurling of lust, the flare in his belly, the sudden focus pulled to Lips-dream-lips and Skin-dream-skin. Attention and hunger. 

It made River jealous. 

Mal didn't dream it again, though. His brain crawled into sex-thoughts, of course, but never with the same clarity. Inara's lips descended his belly, Nandi's cat-eyes fluttered shut on a pillow under him, unidentifiable soft fingers and tongues licked at his thighs, Mal-dream-hands grabbed onto rounded hips and Mal-dream-cock pushed into wet warmth, but these fantasies he allowed, these flooded over him without attention paid, without longing, and River always fled as soon as they started, because Mal would wake gasping soon after they started. 

Would wake and groan, and finish things himself, methodically, focusing on a neutral target, some unknown woman he'd glimpsed on their last venture into the world. 

Mal was careful. 

And River was frustrated. 

But then Miranda happened, and things changed. 

Masks were off; River abandoned her night-circuits, and, amazingly, found that she could sleep. Eight hours, even, full allotment. This was new. It was five years since she'd taken ( _been allowed_ ) more than three hours a stretch. But after all the mess and pain and holes gouged -- after everything, she and Mal had taken over the bridge, flown _Serenity_ up past a storm into starlight, navigated an asteroid belt, and gained clear space. It was a four-hour undertaking, and River found, at the end of it, locking in co-ordinates for Persephone, that she was trembling with exhaustion. 

Mal noticed. 

Mal picked her up (easily as last time) -- "Hey, hey _mei mei_. Doin' too much." -- and she'd curled gratefully into his shoulder, exhaling, eyes sliding shut, the comforting warmth of him under her cheek, worn blue cotton soft and smelling of him ( _leather-rain-coffee-Mal_ ). She woke in her bed, still dressed, covers pulled up tight and clock announcing eight hours had passed. 

Simon-before-Miranda would have been overjoyed, would've immediately wanted to check her white-blood count and adrenaline levels. Simon-after-Miranda, though, when she found him in the lounge (with Kaylee, drinking tea, her feet in his lap) smiled at her absently and kept tracing small circles on Kaylee's ankles. 

And this was good, too, that he had other things to think about. River sighed, slightly, trying not to feel jealous and also trying not to look pointedly at Simon's thumb -- she knew as well as he did where those nerve clusters in the ankle led, what effect he was deviously having on his girlfriend 

She would've thought she had less time to kill, now, with sleeping every night and piloting duties, but it turned out she had more. Simon stopped running daily tests on her vital signs and brain functions, making instead a weekly program that she could mostly self-administer. And piloting required her to be on the bridge, but River could calculate most of the trajectories beforehand, already had the star-maps mostly memorized. She had taken to doing the math over breakfast, making a large pot of coffee before the others were awake and drinking most of it. Wash had been a natural pilot, loved the feeling of the controls in his hands; River, on the other hand, could put her brain into a cold automatic mode that figured out the most efficient angles and flight-paths. She flew too, of course, had to handle ascents and descents and unexpected visitors into their travel-space, but mostly she set numbers and then curled into the seat. 

And the jobs were easy now -- boring even. Regular, which Mal was grateful for, and usually without a lot of shooting or swearing or sweat-running-cold, which made Simon happy, but routine in a way their lives hadn't been for ages. 

Too much time. 

Which was why her attention turned back to Mal and sex-dreams and frustration. 

Particularly after that incident with the headache (his), the Reiki (hers), and the ensuing masturbation (both of them, although in different rooms). 

And so, two months after Miranda, on the way to Glanmore, River leaves the cockpit to Zoe for the night shift, and walks to the cargo bay, instead of her room. The hinge on the access panel is rusty, but there's no one to hear it squeak, and she twists through the ventilation system rapidly, going straight to Mal's bunk. 

He's not asleep. 

He's in his bed, though, in his sleep pants, and the lights are off. Mal's staring at the ceiling, trying, again, not to think about River, wondering how far away she has to be in order to avoid hearing his thoughts. 

River lies there, keeping her head out of sight, willing him to give in, and he's just about to, she can sense it, when an alarm screeches suddenly and inside the ventilation shafts, the emergency doors that separate the shaft between the bunks slide up and closed sharply 

She's just out of reach of them, so nothing gets snapped in two, but she's also stuck in the shaft with an alarm going off. Soldier instincts kick in, and River rolls onto her back, swings her feet around, and kicks the grating open, cat-flipping through it and into Mal's bunk. 

"What the hell?!" Mal's sitting up and pulling on his boots when the grate opens, arousal completely snuffed out in the face of danger. He's a fast draw, and has already flashed his gun out, but River knew he would and she's braced herself and kicked it out of his hand, although not so far away that she can't jump to get it and offer it back. " _River_? What the _hell_?" 

She should be just moving, not thinking, her training should be entirely taking over, but River's still blushing, somehow. "Not now, Captain." And the name, said on purpose, is enough. He's up and he's pushed her behind him as he inches up the ladder. 

Before opening his door, he hits the intercom button for Jayne's room. "You there?" quiet and controlled. 

"Yeah." 

"Kaylee and Simon?" 

"Waitin' orders. Inara's locked the shuttle down. Can't find River." 

"Got her already. Zoe?" 

Jayne takes a moment to digest the first part of the last answer, but doesn't comment. "No answer from the bridge." 

Mal flicks the screen beside the intercom. The hallway is empty, and so are the doors on either side. The alarm, eerily, has stopped. 

"River and I are going to check. Don't get out of your bunks yet." 

"Got it." 

Mal looks at River. "Intruders?" 

She shakes her head. "I should go first." 

"No," and he's inching up the ladder. River rolls her eyes and thinks about knocking him down but since she can't hear anyone else on the ship there's no reason to interfere with the manliness he's insisting on. Besides, she's already in trouble. 

There's no one and nothing in the hallway, nor the cargo bay or the mess or the lounge or the infirmary, and Zoe is perfectly fine and in her place on the bridge, where it turns out that the intercom has blown a fuse. This had led to one of the wires starting to smoke, which in turn led to the fire alarm and the emergency doors sliding shut. So everything is fine, and Mal tells everyone to go back to sleep, and sends Zoe back to her own bunk, and then turns to look at River. 

"What the hell, River? Those aren't for playin'! " Mal had been perfectly calm and controlled through everything else, but now he's sputtering. "It's _dangerous_. You could've been hurt -- if there was fire you could've been _killed_." He's right, and River's blushing again and uncomfortable, but she sends out towards him anyway to find him angry and itching to smack her bottom. 

"Maybe you should." 

"What?" 

"Spank me," and she grins, can't help herself, which makes him angrier, and so she steps in and he grabs her shoulders and River can feel his control almost snapping. 

"You fucking idiot!" But heat is flaring in him, again, and River doesn't want it to be tamped down this time, so she continues to grin, insouciantly, and Mal growls and is pushing her back against the wall and his mouth is on hers and _God_ \-- River forgets to take measure of his control because she has so totally lost her own. His hands slide to her waist, and hers fly to his shoulders, pulling him in hard, her bare foot traveling up his calf as she hooks her leg around his waist. He's still growling, back of his throat, and his tongue is _taking_ her mouth, no other way to describe it, and he's sucking her bottom lip and flicking at the corners and Mal is better at this than anyone else in the 'Verse could possibly be. 

"Cap..." she moans when he takes his mouth off hers to gasp for air, her mouth swollen and bruised by the kiss and aching for him. His eyes fall to her lips and River feels Mal shudder at the sound but withdraw, start to think. That just won't do, so she puts her hands on his shoulders and pushes herself up to wrap both legs around his waist and that undoes his fine resolve, the way she positions herself and grinds against him like she has in his head _every_ night since she came to the bridge to help him with his headache. And the hunger's there, that hunger that she felt when he dreamed of kissing Zoe, so River reaches between them as efficiently as she's ever moved and yanks her dress up and his pants down and _there_ \-- 

She's wet and hot and this is the first time she's done this but she's practiced by herself, so there's no pain and River never _knew_ it would be like _this_ \-- overwhelming, Mal completely in her and around her and he's _bigger_ than the toys she stole from Inara and plastic is nothing like pulsing skin. They're kissing again, still frantic, Mal holding her hands above her head against the wall and not bothering to slow down, and River tilts her pelvis down just a little bit so the angle shifts and there's more pressure just where she's aching for it, and the stars outside seem to be getting incredibly bright and River can feel Mal starting to burn up and _ta ma de_ \-- 

They stay locked against the wall for a few long minutes, afterwards, but both of their legs are trembling and River finally unwinds herself and slides down to sit and rest. Mal doesn't seem able to move. Finally he straightens and pulls his pants back up to his waist. 

"River..." 

"That's what the hell," River informs him, smiling up. "That's why." 

He stares at her for a minute. "That wasn't fair." 

She shrugs. "You wanted to." 

"That wasn't fair to _you_." 

River rolls her eyes. "I wanted to," and gets up, sliding straight up the wall 'till she's face to face with Mal. "I _wanted_ to," she says again, softly, looking at him, and cups his face to kiss him, slipping her tongue quickly to touch his, which makes his eyes close again before he can stop himself. And River's learned a thing or two about power and getting what she wants, so she's slipped off the bridge and left before he opens them again. 

"River!" Mall calls, softly, down the corridor, starting to get angry again. 

"Your turn on the bridge," she carols back, knowing Mal is glaring after her, wearing only sleep pants and boots, hair mussed and his mouth gaping. And she's grinning again, skipping back to her room. 

The next morning, the access panel had a padlock on it. But no one notices for months, not until a largish piece of illicit and sharp cargo scrapes the top of the compartment and wrests it off and it rolls out to stop by Jayne's foot. And he's carrying another illicit and sharp and heavy piece of cargo, so he just kicks it out of the way and it ends up in a corner that everyone skips when they're sweeping. 

After all, the fastest way to someone's bunk is through the door.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **AirWaterFire**   
Author:   **merrily**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **R**  |  **het**  |  **24k**  |  **03/31/06**   
Characters:  Malcolm, River   
Pairings:  Mal/River   
Summary:  River learned the ventilation shafts early.   
Notes:  Post-Serenity (movie, not pilot). If this means you can't read it, you are a poor excuse for a whedongeek! Go rent it! NOW!   
This one goes with Ripples, and that one's more of a tease, so you might want to read it first.   
  



End file.
